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Posted by George
a resident of Downtown North
on Aug 10, 2012 at 12:07 am

Interesting change in call to action during Spare the Air Day. Used to be that when there was poor air quality you were encouraged to remain indoors. Now you are "advised" to walk and bike to work. Huh?

The most common rescue medicine for asthma is an aerosol, which they advise you to avoid since they are polution creating. HUH?

Changing behavior to reduce pollution makes sense, but not at the expense of public health and safety.

Posted by chevron
a resident of another community
on Aug 10, 2012 at 12:23 am

How much does the Chevron fire affect Bay Area pollution levels? Chevron should pay for free public transit around the Bay Area to make up for their pollution incident, instead of raising gas prices to cover their loss.

Posted by Resident
a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood
on Aug 10, 2012 at 9:10 am

I believe we also have a power flex alert and advised to keep our power usage low.

We have no cooling centers so it sounds as if we have to ride our bikes slowly (so as not to have vigorous activity) to a large big box store in Mountain View and spend the warm hours of the day cooling off and not using our power before slowly biking home when it gets dark!

@George - some very interesting work done in the last few years shows indoor air quality can be much worse than outdoor air quality, even on spare the air days. And it is often worse in newer "tight" homes (meaning sealed with no drafts or leaking air).

I ride my bike to work most days and I do wish more folks would do the same - the roads are way more pleasant with more bikers and pedestrians on them.